1No. 1: Building an Ultralight Airplane

Michael Conway, who created the fundraising page on website GoFundMe.com, says he and his classmates at the University of the Pacific were all interested in aviation, but their school didn’t offer aerospace courses. So, for their senior design project, they decided to build an ultralight single-passenger airplane.

“We wanted it to be really easy to get donations, and when we listed out all the materials, it came to $10,000,” says Conway, who says the majority of donations have been from friends and family.

They finished building the 249-pound airplane last week, and while the trio hasn’t received a grade yet, Conway says, “I’m sure we’ll get an A.”

2No. 2: Photographing Earth from Space

Anna Scifres, a sixth grader from Bowling Green, Kentucky, and her father recruited five of Scifres’s friends to embark on a summer science project: taking photos from near-orbit. Initially, the girls thought about hosting a bake sale to raise the needed funds, but Scifres’s father David pointed out getting to their goal of $3,600 was going to take a whole lot of cookies.

So, the group took to Kickstarter – and blew past their original goal.

“Most people don’t want to donate $500 – but a lot more will donate $25,” says Mini Ganesh, on what the crowdfunding experience taught her.

Aside from being successful in their quest to photograph earth from a weather balloon, Scifre says the project taught her a lot about teamwork. “If it had just been me and my dad, we might not have raised the money, but all the other people had connections, too,” she says.

3No. 3: Creating an Innovative iPhone Case

In his junior year of college, Mark Donne searched around for an iPhone case that wasn’t made of rubber or plastic (he didn’t like the way they felt), but says he couldn’t really find one that fit the bill. When the iPhone 4 came out, Donne realized the size of the phone was almost the exact same size as a credit card – and then he says an inspiration struck, for a case that would be part-iPhone protector, part-wallet.

4No. 4: Putting Together a Community Service Network

Jesse Speer, a senior at Manhattan’s School of Visual Arts, says he was inspired to create “The Doers Network” from his experience going on short-term missions trips with his church in New Jersey.

“I had the idea in the back of my head for years to create a network of people that would engage in random acts of kindness,” says Speer.

With the $900 Speer raised on GoFundMe to launch the Doers Network, Speer made t-shirts and had a group walk around a local shopping mall, handing out $5 bills to strangers and paying for their meals in food courts.

The experience taught Speer the difficulties of fundraising – even for a good cause. “Even with tools like Facebook and Twitter, you need to market yourself. It doesn’t take care of itself,” says Speer, adding he needed to keep pushing others to donate in order to fund the project.